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IMAGINATION,
The imagination is the faculty which represents images to the mind. We shall find it the basis of at¬tention, belief, and action. 1. Attention. Attention is the concentration of the consciousness upon some one idea or class of ideas. Its intensity and duration are influenced by the forms in which ideas are presented. Dry and abstract formulas are generally repulsive except to trained minds. Objects of sense, especially in new combinations, are capable of holding the attention through the imagination. Forms and colors engage the attention by pleasing the mind. Accordingly the rhetorician who would hod the atten¬tion of either readers or hearers must so present his ideas as to fulfill this condition of mental action. Long and involved processes of argument must be so relieved by an appeal to this faculty, as to occupy it with the subject, or it will spontaneously engage itself with its own creations, and the attention will be lost upon these. 2. Belief. Intensity of belief depends upon a vivid realization of relations. We are often more deeply moved by a poet's fancies than by the most thoroughly established convictions. Although we may yield a cold assent to an abstract proposition which has been proved by ap• parently valid reasoning, still its influence over our life is comparatively slight. The scenes and characters of a fictitious story are much more real to us than the events and heroes of a dry historical compend. For the moment we believe in details purely imaginary, when they are addressed to the power of representation so as to fill the mind. Ideas thus communicated be¬came associated strongly in the mind, and belief is often revived by the vivid recurrence of the images which excited it. it Action. Action is the product of thought and feeling. An object is presented to the mind, the contemplation of it awakens desires, and the desires lead to action. Without the presentation of objects which excite the feelings, no action can be produced. Hence the im¬agination must be employed by the rhetorician as a principal assistant in persuasion. Ill. MEMORY. Complex ideas can be presented to the mind only by the aid of memory. The action of the mind in some of its more prolonged processes will illustrate this. 1. Conviction. A change in the opinions is generally produced by argumentation. This requires a series of propositions to be shown in their relation to one another, and often occupies considerable time. In what is called " moral " or " probable " reasoning, where the conclusion is based upon a number of particulars which separately are of small value, but which are conclusive when contem¬plated together, this exercise of memory is absolutely necessary to the argument. Even in demonstrative reasoning, where the conclusion is obtained from a single proposition by a series of deductions, the pro¬cesses are often numerous, and the order of the steps is important. Since the effect of argument upon the mind requires the retention of these successive steps, the rhetorician must construct his argument in such a manner as to avoid the danger of missing an impor¬tant link in the chain. 2. Persuasion. As we have seen, persuasion depends upon the cognition of some idea which excites feeling, which in turn stimulates action. Usually the will is moved only when a number of motives are presented, either together or in close array. The aggregation of mo¬tives in persuasion requires the exercise of memory, in order to keep before the mind the incentives suc¬cessively presented. 3. Language. Language, the medium of expression in discourse, is so related to time that the memory must be em¬ployed to treasure up its symbols for comparative interpretation. This function of memory is vitally connected with the laws of form, and will be noticed again in treating of them.